Tampa Conference Will Match Small Businesses With Trade Experts

The U.S. Small Business Administration will host the second of its Export Matchmaker Trade Fair & Conference series in Tampa, Fla., on September 14. The program is designed to provide small business manufacturers and suppliers an easy and inexpensive means for exporting their products by matching them with trade intermediaries from across the country.

“One of President Obama’s goals in the National Export Initiative is to double U.S. exports in five years,” said SBA Administrator Karen Mills. “In these challenging economic times, and with 96 percent of the world’s population living outside the U.S., it just makes sense for Florida’s small businesses to export.”

These trade intermediaries – export management companies, export trading companies, foreign sales brokers and agents – are export specialists that will either buy a company’s products and sell them in foreign markets or represent a company’s products abroad through a distribution agreement or similar contract.

Engaging with an export management company or export trading company can be the most cost-effective means for small businesses to either begin exporting or expand export sales, because they do not need to commit additional personnel or resources to the effort. In fact, indirect marketing via trade intermediaries can make exporting as easy as making a domestic sale.

The Tampa event follows the first Matchmaker conference conducted last year in Jersey City, NJ. The SBA is encouraging trade intermediaries from across the country, as well as foreign buying missions and other trade facilitators such as foreign consulates and bi-national chambers of commerce, shippers, and other trade-related service organizations to meet with small business manufacturers and suppliers at the event.

The conference is cosponsored by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Commercial Service, the Florida District Export Council and the Florida Small Business Development Center Network. For more information and to register for the event visit: www.sba.gov/exportmatchmaker-florida.